Gorgeous gullies… :-)

The latest release of images from the Mars Reconaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera includes a picture of a crater wall streaked with some of the famous “gullies” that planetary scientists and armchair astronauts alike find so intriguing. I was looking at it this morning, zooming in on sections of it with the wonderful IAS Viewer, and noticed something interesting…

Here’s a wide view of the area that caught my eye… I’ve colourised it from the original HiRISE image to make it look (I think, anyway) a little more realistic… as usual click on it and the other images to bring up larger versions of them…

If you look slightly to the left side of that image, between two dark rocky nubby outcrops at the top of already-existing gullies, there’s something interesting…

Is that shallow, short cleft…thing… a gully just starting to form? Taking a closer look…

… it does look like some sort of collapse or subsidence is going on there, don’t you think?

Interesting… 🙂